THE VOICES OF THE BELLS.

We thrill and carol with a happy brightness
   As, smitten with life, we roll and ring;
And, leaping from our homes with giddy lightness,
   Down the precipice of air we dance and spring.

THE WIND.

O, ever-living stars! how old and lonely
   Are ye and I! How sad, and how apart!
The feeble years die round us, and our only
   Companion is the sorrow in the heart.

THE VOICES OF THE BELLS.

Into sudden, wild existence roaring, flashing,
   Into quickly-wrought extinction murmuring round;
Through the whirling and the winding and the crashing,
   We are happy in the life which we have found.

THE WIND.

I mutter'd in the dark, as now I mutter,
   When Chaos was all mad, and God was far
Insphered within His might and mystery utter,
   Ere yet He had permitted sun or star.

THE VOICES OF THE BELLS.

What matter that we die so soon? Unending
   Are the elements from out of which we flow;
And the secret of our smooth, harmonious blending
   Is a mystery which the wisest shall not know.

THE WIND.

I wail and sigh over the sure declension
   Of all things born beneath the rounded spheres,
And find no pleasure in the brief ascension
   Of any of the faint, caying years.

THE VOICES OF THE BELLS.

Yet Nature, with her sweet, beneficent cunning,
   Gives to every living creature joyful breath;
And Life, within its warm and cheerful sunning,
   Sees no shadow of the fast-approaching Death.

THE WIND.

I know the vanity and the treacherous seeming
   Of every shape of joy: I feel the grey
Of twilight in the sun's intensest beaming,
   A darkness in the golden heart of day.

THE VOICES OF THE BELLS.

O, the choruses of laughter, upward rushing
   From the towns and scatter'd hamlets, fleck'd with light!
O, the glad, rejoicing natures, freely gushing
   Round a million happy hearth-stones, warm and bright!

THE WIND.

A little while, and all the mirth is banish'd—
   A little, little while, and all is still!
The feasters into outer space have vanish'd,
   Like clouds that have departed o'er the hill.

THE VOICES OF THE BELLS.

But the clouds, before thine impulse onward springing,
   In some other sky new shapings will receive;
And man's soul, across its mortal boundaries winging,
   Hails Eternity's all-festal New Year's Eve!

THE WIND.

I am too old to listen to young teaching,
   Although 'tis nearer to the source of truth:
In vain the bitter ocean of my preaching
   Thou sprinklest with the honey-dew of youth.

THE VOICES OF THE BELLS.

Then thus we drown thy melancholy murmur
   With the torrent and the tumbling of our sound!
Lo! the footsteps of the Year are growing firmer
   As we fill the airy vastness round and round.
With an eager, fierce impatience, out we stammer;
   With a rush of rapid talking, down we sweep;
With augmenting volubility and clamour,
   Thus we trample, and we eddy, and we leap!
We are creatures of a momentary being;
   We can scarcely bear the sting of our delight;
From our nests of stone and metal we are fleeing,
   In a dance of mazy motion through the night.
We jostle one another, and we wrangle;
   But the harmony which is to us as Love
Breathes a reconciling sweetness through the jangle,
   And we faint towards the singing spheres above:
Faint and falter with an infinite receding,
   Lapse and linger with an exquisite regret;
Till from out the dimmest distance we seem pleading
   And the eyes of frail humanity grow wet.
But the New Year, with its yet unacted history,
   Claims the homage of our last departing chime;
Then we hush ourselves in awe before the mystery
   Of the youngest and the freshest birth of Time.

CHRISTMAS READINGS,

BY

MR. CHARLES DICKENS.

The third reading, consisting of THE CHRISTMAS CAROL,
and THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK, will take place at ST.
MARTIN'S HALL, LONG ACRE, on the evening of
TWELFTH NIGHT, Thursday, January 6th.

THE EIGHTEENTH VOLUME

OF

HOUSEHOLD WORDS

Bound in cloth, price Five Shillings and Sixpence, may
now be had of all Booksellers.

Now ready, price 3d., stamped, 4d, THE CHRISTMAS
NUMBER of Household Words, entitled,

A HOUSE TO LET.

Contents:-  1. Over the Way. 2. The Manchester
Marriage. 3. Going into Society. 4. Three Evenings in
the House. 5. Trottles Report. 6. Let at Last.

The Right of Translating Articles from HOUSEHOLD WORDS is reserved by the Authors.